Drifting Away
by misszeldasayre
Summary: After Aang's funeral, Katara's grief threatens to overwhelm her. She turns to water for comfort as she struggles to adjust to life alone. When this bathing addiction spirals out of control, her children call in the only person who can drag Katara out of the bathtub: Republic City's chief of police.


The faucet leaks. No matter how Katara tugs or tightens it, it won't stop dripping. Just when she thinks she's stopped the flow, the metal shudders and begins the cycle again. Drip. Onto Katara's knees. She can't control the tap and she can't control the way her stomach knots at the contact.

Drip. Aang's hands against her back as they bathe together.

Drip. Aang washing Bumi in his first bath.

Drip. Aang's mouth brushing hers under rain from the showerhead.

She's curled up in the tub. Been that way for hours. The water is cold now. If it was warm at some point, Katara can't remember. Its warmth doesn't matter. Just its wetness. The water rests weightless against her skin. She could almost float away. Almost. It's her clothes that weigh her down.

* * *

After Aang's body has been carried out of their bedroom, after the funeral service ends, Katara aches to be submerged in her element— the last remaining feeling of home in this new, foreign world. With crowds still milling around Air Temple Island, she leaves Tenzin to field their respects and sneaks home.

Her bathroom: all hard corners and slippery blue tile. A far cry from the South Pole. But a quiet, clean place where she can hide.

When the tub fills with water, she sinks into its embrace. It's only when her tunic balloons with moisture that she realizes she forgot to undress before stepping in. Too tired to move, though. Too tired to think. She drifts away in the white tub like a bison in the sky.

It's Kya who finds her like this. Always Kya who remembers to check on her. She glances at her mother, a worried look pinching her mouth. Katara shrugs when Kya asks her where she's been, why she's still wearing her clothes. "An accident," Katara explains, but that doesn't explain her reluctance to take them off when she steps out of the tub.

Rivulets stream from the tunic's hem onto the blue tiles below. Kya bends the water off the floor with a quick pull. Another gesture, and Katara could be dry. But she shakes away her daughter's aid and lets the water run off her back. The only reminder that Katara was there, hours later, is the puddle still resting on the cool tile floor.

* * *

A sleepless night. The air rustles through the open window, teasing her with memories of Aang in this bed.

Swish. Aang wrestling baby Tenzin into a swaddle.

Swish. Aang's gentle hands tracing invisible patterns on Katara's stomach.

Swish. Aang cradling Katara with both arms as she drifts off.

In the deep violet shadows, she sees the silhouette of a cloak, hears a giggle in the wind. The early morning knocks the breath out of her lungs, so she retreats to the element that's always kept her safe.

* * *

She doesn't deserve the water's comfort. It dulls the ache of losing Aang. He deserves to be remembered. His loss demands to be felt. A wail grows in the back of Katara's throat, threatening to tear through her skin. When she opens her mouth to scream, she only croaks, a keening squeak. Bending away her tears would dishonor his memory. So she lets them fall. The water rises in the tub, almost imperceptibly. Katara feels the growing waterline like a brand on her chest. Another inch of her tunic soaks up the excess, and now the only dry parts of her shirt left today are her shoulders.

* * *

Another morning, another bath. There is no joy in this water, no laughter in the bubbles. No one to help her bend the water fogging up the windows, or heat it when they stay in the tub too long. Now there's a just a leaky faucet and a lukewarm slush.

Drip. Katara can't tell if it's the faucet or her eyes leaking this time. It doesn't matter. Water is water, no matter the source. Her wet clothes cling to her frame, holding her the way Aang can't anymore. She drifts off, and wakes only when the afternoon sun trickles through the curtained window.

* * *

"Worried… Mother…"

Words pierce through the steam surrounding Katara. She moves to respond, but the steam clouds her head. Through the fog, she sees Kya and Bumi standing over her tub, arms crossed. All she can murmur is, "Kya."

Her daughter rushes to her side. "Mother?"

Katara smiles as she reaches for Kya's face to reassure her. Yet Kya backs away as her mother's sleeve splashes her face. Katara frowns, but can't find the energy to argue. She slips below the surface. Water gushes through her ears. When she reemerges, her children's words dance like kites in the breeze.

"… Been like this for days…"

"Can you… ?"

"… Can't get her out of it…"

Bumi's voice, so deep, sounds like his father's. The sound should tear at Katara's heart, but all she feels is it echoing against the tile, reverberating against her chest. A companion thump to her heart.

* * *

Weeks pass. Aang is long gone. Katara sleeps with the windows shut at night so the wind can't remind her of him. As if she could ever forget him. Every bite she eats, every step she takes, every drop of water in her body— in her clothes— cries out for him.

Straining to shoulder this pervasive sense of loss, she turns to water as she always has. Taking baths quiets the despair in her heart. Breathing comes easier when her chest is submerged. Here, in this porcelain room, the air is still.

When these baths cross the line from habit to compulsion, Katara doesn't know. But the idea of taking her clothes off makes her sick, and the idea of not bathing at all, sicker still. Aang's last breaths cling to the fabric of her clothes, and she clings to the last reminders of his presence.

Afraid she'll lose what's left of him, she won't change out of her tunic. It's the faded blue one she wore on his last night, the one he said made her eyes glow like the stars. The one she hasn't taken off since she last saw Aang.

It watched his last smile with her, sat through his funeral with her, slept without him for the first time with her. Now its sleeves weep with her as she raises them out of the water. Taking it off would be taking off a memory, one she can't afford to lose.

* * *

A new voice joins the chorus at the side of her tub. Serious, measured. Katara won't lift her eyes from the stream of water she's bending around her ankles, but knows that Tenzin stands above her. A young Aang. Their voices ebb and flow, swirling around Katara.

"How is she?"

"Not good…"

"Dad's been gone for a month now…"

"… Addicted…"

"…Found her lying on the floor… Still wet…"

"I don't know what to do…"

"At least she's still eating."

When Katara raises her gaze to meet her children's concerned stares, she's paralyzed at the sight of Tenzin's orange and red robes. They almost make her feel something.

* * *

Fearing Aang's death for so long weighed down her shoulders. Each cough, each tumble down the stairs. This is it, she'd tell herself. Preparing. Waiting. There was no way to know how long he'd be next to her. Then her worst nightmare came true. Now she's finally free of that fear. But she'd give anything to trade her new certainty for the old uncertainty. Better to wonder if every day is his last rather than know his last day has passed.

Now her spirit yearns for him, strains to leave behind her clumsy body so she can search for his soul. Her parents taught her about the stars in the sky, each one the spirit of a person traveling from this world to the next. A new world, tucked away in the recesses of the heavens.

After her parents died, Katara always pictured them as stars traveling to that version of the afterlife they had imagined. But Aang is not a waterbender. Where has he gone? Is he a star like his wife grew up believing? Does he only exist as a figment in the next Avatar's imagination? Is he in the spirit world, where the extraordinary go and Katara cannot follow?

In the tub, the water soaks the unshed tears from Katara's skin so they don't inflame her eyes. When her questions outweigh her answers, she can focus on the way her tunic catches on her bindings, the way her toes wrinkle like Gran Gran's sea prunes.

Someday she'll follow Aang into the next life. She'll learn where he has gone and chase after him. All she must do now is wait for that day to come.

* * *

"Toph." The name sounds so familiar, yet like it's from another life. It conjures up images of green laughter and cloudy eyes. Katara closes her eyes and sinks deeper into the tub.

"Wow, Sugar Queen. Kya said you were bad, but I didn't think you'd look this bad."

An abrasive chuckle. Katara opens her eyes. The world floods back to her.

"Figured I'd come check on you since I didn't see you after the funeral." Toph plops onto the wide rim of the tub. She dangles her dirty feet in the water. Katara shudders. But the water isn't clean anymore, not after hours of soaking. So she doesn't complain. Even when Toph begins picking at her toenails.

"You've got some kind of nerve, disappearing on me like that."

Katara doesn't know how the police chief's words should make her feel, how she should respond. So she watches the ripples their feet make.

"What's with you?" Toph asks. She's not smiling anymore. "Kya calls me saying you won't take off your clothes and now you've lost your voice?"

Katara shrugs before realizing the gesture's probably lost on Toph. The earthbender narrows her eyes at her friend's silence.

"I didn't leave my lily-livered police force unsupervised for the day so I could come out to this island and listen to you clean yourself." Anger smolders in Toph's tone, but the fight has been washed out of Katara. She can't rise to the bait, even if fighting Toph is what she used to do best.

"I lost him." The cry escapes Katara lips. "I lost the best part of me and I don't know how to find him again."

Toph exhales. Is that frustration in her sigh? "Look here, Sweetness. In the end, everyone ends up alone. Stop moping around like you're the only person who's lost someone. Get out of the bath and change your damn clothes."

It's like Toph punched Katara, the way her words land on her back. They pierce through her numbness, awakening an anger that's simmered low under her loss. Because of her loss.

"I can't!" Katara shouts, bringing Kya running to the door. "Everything's falling apart. I'm falling apart." A whisper now. The room grows quiet, except for the water lapping at the porcelain sides of the bathtub. And that persistent trickle from the faucet.

When Toph opens her mouth again, the words tumble out unsteadily. Sharp at first. Then soft. "Yeah, you lost your husband, and I'm not the one to ask where you can find him again. All that spirit mumbo-jumbo was Aang's specialty. But I know about strength. I know you can't be broken by this."

"They didn't even talk about him."

"What?"

"At the funeral. They didn't even talk about who Aang was. They just talked about the Avatar. His accomplishments. Bringing peace to the Four Nations, creating Republic City. He was so much more than that." And now he's gone. And these clothes are all that Katara has left of him touching her.

"Where do you feel closest to him?" Toph prompts.

The beaches of Air Temple Island flash into Katara's mind. Picnicking on the west shore, just the two of them. Waking up early to sneak in the sunrise before the world rose and needed Aang again. Walking in the surf, letting the waves lap at their feet.

"The beach." Katara's confused, but she knows better than to question Toph when she sets her jaw.

"We'll go there to say goodbye."

"But… water. Are you okay with—?"

"I'm the Blind Bandit. Of course I can handle a bit of water," Toph scoffs. Then she cocks her head, listening. Drip. "You've gotta get this faucet fixed." With a twist of her wrist, she bends the metal until the leak dries up. In the silence, Katara can hear the wind tapping on her window, coaxing her outside.

* * *

The familiar push and pull of the tides beat in time with her heart as Katara stands on the shore of Air Temple Island. A draft licks at her heels. Turning to Toph, she protests, "You hate swimming."

"I hate your kids interrupting me at work more," Toph grumbles, but the bite in her tone isn't present. "Let's get this over with." Her police vest is already on the ground and she hovers over the shoreline, dipping a reluctant toe in the current.

As Katara's fingers wrap around the hem of her tunic, the breeze lifts her shirt and blows it over her head. Swish. She fumbles her way to the surface in that sea of cloth, tossing it into the pebbly sand at her feet. It is off, and Katara can feel again.

The sun beats down on her shoulders, which perk up under its rays. Her long white braid tickles the small of her back. Swish. The wind caresses her hips, urging her to step in. She feels Aang's touch in that puff of air. Perhaps he's not a star like she believed her parents were. Perhaps…

Drip. The waves settle after Toph's splash, and Katara's laughter echoes along the beach as the police chief emerges from the water, water streaming from her bangs, looking for all the world like a disgruntled catgator who just missed a meal. It's probably just her imagination when the breeze sweeps by, yet Katara swears she hears another giggle joining her. One she used to hear daily. It's as if the wind whispers, "Why did you wait so long to find me?" Katara can't answer; her mouth goes dry.

"Come on, Sugar Queen!" Toph splutters. "I'm gonna freeze my butt off. Don't leave me all alone out here!"

Katara clambers up a rocky outcropping, pausing to overlook the sea. Then she leaps. For a moment, it feels like she's flying again, like she's fourteen on the back of a sky bison. The wind buoying her up feels so solid. Yet as soon as it scoops her up, it slides her down into the waiting tendrils of ocean reaching up to break her fall.

Water was there for Katara before Aang entered her life. It will be there for her when he's gone. This thought streams off of Katara's hair, salt sharp on her tongue, as she surfaces. She spots Toph reclining in the surf, attempting to relax, but tensing so horribly that Katara worries she'll sink under the strain. When Katara swims over and grabs her hand, Toph doesn't complain. The lack of protest surprises Katara. Maybe the earthbender knows how much she needs this.

Her friend's hand in hers and a small gust of wind stroking her face, Katara leans back in the water to watch the sky. The clouds dance with the sun, wispy and humid, heavy and light. In this moment, Katara feels weightless. No clothes to weigh her down. She almost smiles, lying on her back, floating by Toph's side, with Aang in the breeze.

* * *

 **Pro-Bending Circuit | Round 3**

 **Team + Position: Laogai Lion Vultures, airbender**

 **Addiction: bathing fully clothed (Level 2)**

 **Prompts Used: violet (color) | Toph (character) | "You Found Me" (song)**

 **Bonus: Use of my element (air)**

 **Word Count: 2,602**


End file.
